Leveling my panda mage, spamming the one attack, mostly. He's level six, and just got the cart to a village. I'm prolly going to go Horde, since my bank-alt on that server is Horde and has all my phat lewt.

The Panda starting zone seems to be ok, much more mellow than the Goblin zone was in Cataclysm. I've died a handful of times already, from instant-aggro of the swarming beasties around some of the quest nodes. Very annoying to have 3 monkeys latch on to you, and no way to get rid of them. Oh well, death is cheap at Level 5.

Can't see the point of creating a Monk in the first few months, since every man and their dog will have one (or more) of the damn things. DPS is just so much easier to play for us casual types: "let me join your group and faceroll this instance" rather than healing or tanking.

Once I get out of the starting area and get aligned with Horde, it's RDF all the way. Going Fire, since I've played a Frost mage, and an Arcane one.

Incidentally, I really like the login screen music. The start is boring, but after sitting in the queue for a minute or so it gets much more interesting! Still lots of old music in the arrangement, but the new MoP themes are lovely.

DPS is just so much easier to play for us casual types: "let me join your group and faceroll this instance" rather than healing or tanking.

Don't discount healing for a casual type. Call me crazy, but I feel like it's easier going into a dungeon blind as a healer than as a dps. You don't have to worry about attacking the right thing or picking up adds, and generally speaking, there are rarely any healer-specific gimmicks you need to worry about that don't involve doing what you're already doing (making green bars bigger and cleansing debuffs).

Of course I may be biased from playing a resto shammy for the last 3 years...

Also, I have yet to purchase Pandaria but the wife has and from what I've seen it looks like a decent expansion so far. That said, any damn expansion would almost have to be decent coming on the heels of Cata. Carry on...

I'm really liking the new quest reward system (i.e. how it tweaks quests that give equipment so that there's always at least one piece of equipment that's relevant to your class and spec).It's really helping me with questing rather than dealing with LFD/LFR (I'm levelling a Brewmaster Monk and I'm just not sure how many healers in LFD/LFR are prepared to deal with how Monk tanks works vs. how traditional tanks work).Has any body else gone dungeoning with a Brewmaster?

I did my first RDF on my brewmaster this morning, and it went swimmingly. Stagger as a mechanic at low levels is really just a minor DOT, so I'm guessing most healers won't even begin to notice it until the very high levels anyway. Things should get even simpler in the next level when I get my Fire AOE + DOT that combines with the keg toss. AoE threat should be pretty simple.

I actually like the Brewmaster better for soloing at this point than the Windwalker spec. Specifically, while WW does kill things a bit faster, Fists of Fury is just a terribly unexciting skill (even though it is very good). The Brewmaster actually requires a bit of resource management and intelligent ability use to make sure your good abilities are available when you need them.

I'm leveling a fresh Monk the old fashion way with heirlooms and have done a bunch of healing. It's hilarious, at low levels I only have one healing spell and yet it is more than enough. It's a fricken channel that I can toggle onto new targets once the GCD tolls over.

As far as Brewmasters go, in end game it will be a matter of knowing when to clear the Stagger debuff. Bad tanks will be bad, good tanks will be good. When I healed them a bunch in beta, it reminded me a lot of healing warriors in TBC and Vanilla.

I'm not a raider, so am letting my rested XP build up and let the first rush of people get through pandaland before I start. So I've been leveling a Rogue alt who went from 61 -> 63 last night running BC dungeons, and every run I did had at least 2 monks in it.

Most of the tanks were good, although some had a tendency to put a mega-pull that wiped us. Monk healing was a bit more hit and miss, from my admittedly small sample size (probably three different healing monks).

I actually like the Brewmaster better for soloing at this point than the Windwalker spec. Specifically, while WW does kill things a bit faster, Fists of Fury is just a terribly unexciting skill (even though it is very good). The Brewmaster actually requires a bit of resource management and intelligent ability use to make sure your good abilities are available when you need them.

I've found this to be true for me as well, I may not burn down a single mob as fast as a WW would, but I can grab 2-3 mobs at once to even out the difference.

Plus covering mobs in booze and then setting them on fire never stops being funny

Took two days off work to level and such. Started at midnight and reached level 90 about 15 hours later. Missed server first druid on Mal'Ganis by a few hours. Surprised I reached it 2nd with my power going down for two planned outages eating up almost 2 hours and my poor management of guild battle standards. The other guy had help from a hunter though so was able to place more standards, etc.

You can level skinning crazy fast once you get to the area on Wandering Isle where the tigers are.Tons of new Panda just killing them, looting and then leaving the corpse for the enterprising skinner

Herbalism is crazy fast w/ leveling as well. Not even trying, I had it up to lvl 30 before I left the springs.

And, for the record, I don't have the xpac yet, and I was able to roll a panda. I just couldn't resist naming a panda hunter "Shootsleaves" so I figured I'd play him out till I started hankering for some monk action.

Let myself get distracted by pet battles last night. I was at 132 pets so I went around with my level 6 Kirin Tor Familiar, Lashtail Hatchling, and Clockwork Gnome to grab a bunch of level 1s in the capitals. I was surprised that there was an achievement for that (capture a pet in the four capital cities), and that there was another one for capturing pets in the Horde capitals (I'm a gnome mage).

Well.

I went to Orgrimmar first, flew up at the ceiling, got naked, and dropped down into the pond at the back (I was glad it's still there, that city has changed a lot). Eventually a green paw showed up on the minimap, on a road beyond the wood bridge to the east. That's when I found out something very interesting and useful: Entering a pet battle does not break invisibility.

Invisibility ended and I was attacked by a level 90 guard (I'm still 86) as soon as I came out of the pet battle. I sheeped him eventually and ran off until combat broke, somehow not triggering any more guards. Flew up and out of there, for Thunderbluff, where I repeated the process (and was again attacked). I kept my rocket belt on, though, so I slowfalled at mach 2 out of there.

Portaled to Ironforge and flew up to Undercity. I found no pets in the backdoor sewer, and wasn't going to blow my invis on getting past the +4 level guards, so I went out and decided to try the Ruins of Lordaeron part of Undercity. Successfully captured a pet there but didn't find out until I was in the Ghostlands that the Ruins don't count as Undercity for the achievement. I decided against trying to infiltrate Silvermoon at this point and just hearthed back to some Pandaria inn.

I accomplished the "All Cities" accomplishment on the second day, and I still believe that Horde sneaking into Ironforge and Exodar is harder than Alliance sneaking into Undercity.

For me, the hardest parts were: 1.) Shedding aggro in Ironforge, and 2.) Shedding aggro in Stormwind after coming out of the Deeprun Tram. In hindsight, I probably should have reversed the path - do Stormwind, then dash for the Tram. But IIRC, getting into Ironforge via the Tram is a right bitch and a half.

Is there a way to get the new cooking tokens before you hit level 90 (not counting the initial "way of <x>" quests that you do to train the different ways before you hit level 90)? As far as I can tell you have to be 90 to unlock the dailies so you can't get any beyond those initial quests before that.

My wife and I hit 87 yesterday and unlocked 2 new instances. We queued and got the same one the Blizz UX team did the challenge with Blood Legion. The healer ended up being a level 90 monk so that was the first time I've run a dungeon with the monk. Although he was 90 (which probably helped a lot) he didn't seem to have any trouble healing me (as the tank). No close calls or anything even though I'm sure I took more damage than necessary as it was my first time in there.

All of the Pet Battle achievements are fully account-wide. Not only can you do Big City Pet Brawlin' - Alliance on an Alliance character and Big City Pet Brawlin' - Horde on a Horde character, you can even do each city on a different character.

Not that sneaking into the enemy cities isn't fun, but it's entirely optional.

They did a really good job with the pet battles UI (shows good relevant information, yet still looks nice and simple), so I feel bad that I want to change it. I don't need all the chrome borders, and they sit on top of my regular UI so I can't read chat while I battle. I'd also like to have a couple more pointers on likely abilities of enemy pets (including remembering them once they're cast) with the strong/weak modifiers vs my pets, etc. I'm sure someone will come out with a decent pet UI to replace it all.

I like to cast a mount just before clicking accept on a battle, so I just chill on a mount when looking at the other player during battle. (I wonder if they see me on that mount, hmm.)

I'm running with the Baby Blizzard Bear, Clockwork Gnome, and Willy. The first two are quite popular with other trainers I've seen. That bear is a nasty beast. I've also been playing with Sinister Squashling, Durotar Scorpion, Mr. Grubbs, Lil' Smoky and Singing Sunflower.

I also heard there's pandas and a new continent or something, but I've been pet battling more then questing. I've done a bit tho, looks good.

So far, they did a great job with this expansion, shows they've learned many lessons from the screwups in Cataclysm.

They did a really good job with the pet battles UI (shows good relevant information, yet still looks nice and simple), so I feel bad that I want to change it. I don't need all the chrome borders, and they sit on top of my regular UI so I can't read chat while I battle. I'd also like to have a couple more pointers on likely abilities of enemy pets (including remembering them once they're cast) with the strong/weak modifiers vs my pets, etc. I'm sure someone will come out with a decent pet UI to replace it all.

One thing that I would like in regards to the pet battles is the ability to show whether I have the critter already on mouse-over tooltip. Anyone know any addons that can do that? It would definitely make it easier to see at a glance if I should just kill or try to capture something...

I'm running with the Baby Blizzard Bear, Clockwork Gnome, and Willy. The first two are quite popular with other trainers I've seen. That bear is a nasty beast.

I am using Mini Diablo and Panda Cub right now, trying to settle on a third. When I started with just Mini D, he lost to squirrels...SInce most of the critters around SW were beasts, I had to soften them up with the Panda Cub and then bring in Mini D. Once he was level 2, it wasn't so bad.

We're not making any changes to the way RaF bonuses function, which means monks won't be excluded from receiving the benefits of RaF when Mists of Pandaria is released.

as i understand it, level granting via RaF works on monks.. but the 'free level 80' for scroll of resurrection doesn't..

You're correct. The free level 80 requires the character to already exist and the qualifications for the level 80 mean that it's impossible to already have a monk created while still qualifying for the scroll of res.

I got a chance to log in and get a good amount of time in last night while sitting on pointless conference calls involving me saying absolutely nothing (hooray pointless moral support!) and found both the Jade Forest and the panda starting zone to be almost empty. While there were people playing through, there wasn't any of the typical new-expansion headaches (no constant fighting for quest mobs/items, no server instability, no players standing on top of quest givers, etc.) Completely unlike the BC, Wrath (especially in the DK starting zone), and Cata expansion launches.

While it was nice to not have to spend two hours constantly trying to tag a quest mob before someone else did, it was a bit unnerving.

I saw some d-bag belf paladin (is there any other kind? Trololo) attacking an ally yesterday so I helped kill him. The belf then decided to harass me for the next 30 minutes. The moronic part is that we could not kill eachother. I am guardian drood, and was either ret or prot. We jumped around fighting for 15 minutes until I stunned him and dashed away. Unfortunately paladins are faster on mounts so I wasn't able to get away. I ended up dragging him all the way back to town, where another ally showed up to help. He tried to kill me another couple times but luckily got bored and left me alone eventually.

The other interesting moment from last night was watching my pally friend shoot off a 75k wrath crit. Symbiosis is so cool.

They did a really good job with the pet battles UI (shows good relevant information, yet still looks nice and simple), so I feel bad that I want to change it. I don't need all the chrome borders, and they sit on top of my regular UI so I can't read chat while I battle. I'd also like to have a couple more pointers on likely abilities of enemy pets (including remembering them once they're cast) with the strong/weak modifiers vs my pets, etc. I'm sure someone will come out with a decent pet UI to replace it all.

If you mouseover the enemy pet's icon it shows their attacks, and an up green arrow for strong damage, or a down red arrow for weak damage. Or nothing if it's not either. Doesn't help with remembering what the heck they do, but it does tell how much it's going to hurt. Of course you can always open the pet journal and look it up, it's turn based, the wild pets will wait.

I've said this several times already, but you really need to level more than 3 pets, preferably 6. Once you get to the mid teens and start fighting 3 wild pets every time your team is going to get too damaged to continue even after one fight. Having pets you can swap back and forth prevents waiting 8 minutes between battles and/or continuously flying back and forth to the stablemaster.